Word: frans
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...Français has verve that Craig Claiborne calls "pyrotechnic." Its sauces have been described as "psychedelic." One hundred twenty gastronomes polled by Playboy magazine picked Le Francais as the No. 2 restaurant in the country (after Manhattan's grand palais de cuisine Lutece). Bon Appétit proclaimed Le Français "America's greatest restaurant." Almost from the day it opened in 1973, the nation's growing cadres of gourmets and gourmands have been journeying to Le Français, "like dedicated pilgrims," observed one Chicago critic, "on their way to a shrine." The cost...
...Français Maestro Banchet puts on a gala performance for two seatings a night, six nights a week. From noon to midnight he prowls the stainless-steel corridors of his ultramodern kitchen, setting a whirlwind pace for his 32-member staff. "Sacrebleu! Sacrebleu!" he shouts at a sous-chef when something goes wrong. One minute he is throwing whole fistfuls of truffles into a twelve-quart mixing bowl. Next he starts a pheasant paté, followed by a lobster and crayfish mousse. Tasting each creation in turn, he makes several mid-course corrections, adding a little salt here...
Shortly before 6, the dining room at Le Français has reached a state of burnished perfection. Above, dark wood beams and bronze chandeliers. Below, fresh flowers, crisp linen, the gleam of silver and crystal. Doris Banchet, the German-born wife of the chef, appears by the entrance in a chic black dress adorned with a golden rooster brooch, "the sign of good cuisine," she explains. Now it is the waiters, formal in their tuxedos, who take over, announcing the program and pacing the elaborate performance. The first guests arrive: James and Judy Horn, a pair of young Chicago...
Eating at Le Français is serious business, and tablemates frequently converse with the intensity of opera buffs at intermission. Detroit Businessman Ed Connelly is a Le Français fan. He and his wife Pat popped into their eight-seat Cessna 421 a little over an hour ago and flew down to Wheeling just for dinner. They brought along Paul Mann, a wine importer, and his wife Rosi. The first courses are just arriving. Ed has ordered oysters: half a dozen embedded in their shells over spinach leaves and lobster mousse. Each is covered with julienne leeks...
...considering when to launch a counterinvasion of the Falklands, her partners in the European Community last week gave Britain first a diplomatic slap and then subjected it to a humiliation that shook the ten-nation Community to its institutional roots. The crux of the problem, as French President François Mitterrand put it, was not just "what role Great Britain intends to play" in the Community, but "the question of the presence or the nature of the presence of Great Britain in the Community...